War On The Rocks

WOTR's Ryan Evans sat down with Colin Kahl, the National Security Advisor to Vice Present Joe Biden, to talk about the mess of the Middle East and what the Obama administration is doing about it. From Iran to the Gulf states to Syria to Iraq to Turkey and beyond, Kahl explains how the White House views the problems and opportunities there. He also discusses what it's like to be in a presidential administration in its final year. If you like this podcast, be sure to check out our last conversation with Kahl about the Iran nuclear agreement. Image: USAF, Senior Airman Matthew Bruch

We are trying something a little new with our podcast series. Segments! And music! In the first segment of our new podcast, Ryan Evans sits down with Claude Berube to talk about his new novel, Syren's Song. Ryan then joins Gen. Bob Scales to talk about his recent trip to Europe where he looked at the ability of U.S. and European forces to fight Russia in the event of a war. Gen. Scales expands on some of the concerns he expressed in the Wall Street Journal. Happy listening!

How will the U.S. military stay competitive? This is about far more than platforms, bombs, and guns. It is fundamentally about people. And with archaic personnel systems plaguing the armed forces and the Department of Defense, our talented young men and women are being drawn away into the private sector in Silicon Valley and on Wall Street. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter sat down with WOTR's Ryan Evans to talk about the Force of the Future initiative - a sweeping program of reforms that aims to bring the Department of Defense into the 21st Century in terms of how it manages its most important asset: human beings. TRANSCRIPT EDITOR-IN-CHIEF RYAN EVANS:  Welcome a very special edition of the War on the Rocks podcast series, with Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter. Thanks for making the time for us, Mr. Secretary. SECRETARY OF DEFENSE ASH CARTER:  Ryan, thanks for being here.  Welcome to the Pentagon. EVANS:  We're here to talk about Force of the Future.  It's a program of reforms, aimed at changing the way the

In histories of the Second World War, the Vatican has not fared well. Pope Pius XII has been condemned as "Hitler's Pope" and the Church castigated for not doing enough to avert war and save the victims of the Third Reich. Enter Mark Riebling's new book, Church of Spies: The Pope's Secret War Against Hitler. After years of painstaking research in the Vatican's archives, Riebling has a different and heart-pounding story to tell of the Pope's network of spies that fought to bring about Hitler's downfall. In this podcast, WOTR's Ryan Evans and Mark Stout (himself a veteran of the CIA) sits down with Riebling to chat about this amazing book that combines the rigor of history with the storytelling of a novel. His final verdict on Pius XII: "He wasn't Hitler's Pope, but he wasn't Anne Frank's Pope either." Listen!   Image: Public Domain

What's going on around the world? For our latest podcast, WOTR editor-in-chief Ryan Evans was joined by a great group to talk about Russia and its intervention in Syria, the Middle East more broadly, America's approach to foreign policy, the refugee crisis in Europe, the international economy, and Congress.  Our guests were Justin Johnson of the Heritage Foundation, Denise Natali of the National Defense University, Bill Rosenau of CNA, and Erin Simpson of Caerus Associates.

Will McCants of the Brookings Institution and David Ignatius of The Washington Post sat down with Ryan Evans to chat about the topic of Will's new book, ISIS Apocalypse: The History, Strategy, and Doomsday Vision of the Islamic State. In this wide-ranging conversation, our guests reached back into the origins of the Islamic State and came all the way up to the storm of violence that covers so much of the Middle East today. Have a listen!  

Dmitry Gorenburg, an occasional WOTR contributor and expert on Russian military affairs at the CNA Corporation, sat down with Ryan Evans to chat about the state of Russia's armed forces, its campaigns in Ukraine and Syria, Putin as a strategist, and how one becomes an expert on Russian military affairs. Have a listen!    

Ah, the 2016 presidential election.  Trump still leads the GOP field, Hillary has been challenged in the polls by Bernie Sanders and the shadow of Joe Biden looms large over the Democratic hopefuls.  And whether it's the Islamic State, Russia, cybersecurity, or the politics of the Iran deal, national security issues are going to play a central role.  So to kick off our newest channel, #NatSec2016, we brought together  two experts from different parts of the political spectrum - Doug Ollivant and Mike Waltz - as well as Greg Jaffe of The Washington Post to explore the 2016 politics of national security. Have a listen and enjoy!

Is the American defense industry ready for what is coming next? Can it adapt, survive, and thrive in an era of paradigm-changing new technologies? Can the industry maintain America's military superiority in the face of the U.S. government's stifling contracting regulations? What can the U.S. government and the defense industry learn from Silicon Valley? We brought together three experts - Stephen Rodriguez, Sam Zega, and Paul Scharre - the talk about how we can hack the defense industry. Have a listen!   Image: Dammit, CC

In the latest installment of our podcast, we gathered some top Asia wonks - WOTR Senior Editor Van Jackson of CNAS, Evan Montgomery of CSBA, Mira-Rapp Hooper of CSIS, and Samm Sacks of the Eurasia Group. The topic? The state of U.S.-China relations and the major issues likely to occupy President Barack Obama when Chinese President Xi Jinping comes to town. Have a listen!   Image Credit: thierry ehrmann

One organization has been behind America's most daring raids, from the deserts of Iraq and Syria to the hills of Pakistan to the jungles of South America. That organization is Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). Ryan Evans, editor-in-chief of War on the Rocks, sat down with Sean Naylor of Foreign Policy and author of the new book, Relentless Strike: The Secret History of Joint Special Operations Command.  Have a listen! Image: U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Paul Peterson

TM Gibbons-Neff of The Washington Post (and formerly of the U.S. Marine Corps) and ​Dr. Bruce Gudmundsson of Marine Corps University joined WOTR's Ryan Evans to talk about TM's recent reporting from the front in Eastern Ukraine through the lens of the history of infantry combat. Image Credit: TM Gibbons-Neff

In this week's podcast, navalists B.J. Armstrong and Scott Cheney-Peters joined Alex Hecht, the editor of the Molotov Cocktail channel, and Ryan Evans for a carousing (but responsible) imbibing of naval history through four naval drinks: grog, the rum flip, the daiquiri, and the gimlet. Have a listen and drink along with us! The recipes are below. Grog: 4 ounces lime juice 1/4 pound brown sugar 4 oz. dark rum 8 oz. water 2 sprigs mint Rum Flip: 4 oz. Gosling’s Rum 1 oz. simple syrup 2 egg yolks Grated nutmeg Daiquiri: 3 oz. silver rum 1.5 oz. simple syrup 1.5 oz. lime juice Gimlet: 3 oz. London dry gin 1.5 oz. simple syrup 1.5 oz. lime juice   Image: Wikimedia Commons. Illustration from the book "Songs, naval and national" by Thomas Dibdin, published in London, England in 1841. The caption is "Saturday Night At Sea," and shows a group of sailors amusing themselves while off duty by singing. The illustration itself is by George Cruikshank (d. 1878).

At War on the Rocks, we are re-vamping our podcast series. We will be holding one podcast a week. The first of each month will be 'round the world. We will discuss the most pressing global security issues...over drinks of course. Have a listen! This week, we were joined by: Richard Fontaine, President of the Center for a New American Security Frank Hoffman, Senior Research Fellow at the National Defense University's Institute for National Strategic Studies (all of his opinions are his own, of course, and not those of NDU, the Dept. of Defense, or the U.S. government) Justin T. Johnson, Senior Policy Analyst for Defense Budgeting Policy at the Heritage Foundation Afshon Ostovar, a Middle East analyst at CNA Mira Rapp-Hooper, the Director of the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at CSIS Erin Simpson, CEO of Caerus Associates.

In today's podcast, John Amble talks to August Cole of the Atlantic Council's Art of Future Warfare project and B.J. Armstrong, a historian and naval officer, about how we approach the critical task of forecasting the future of warfare. In the discussion, we examine the comparative merits of history and fiction as sources of lessons with which to understand, make predictions about, and prepare for warfare in the future. Somewhat sadly, this podcast's title isn't entirely accurate. This is one of those rare War on the Rocks podcasts that we did not record over drinks. I trust you'll make up for our shortcoming in this respect by imbibing on our behalf while you listen.   Buy August's book, Ghost Fleet, and B.J.'s book, 21st Century Sims. B.J.'s opinions, of course, do not represent those of the U.S. Navy or the Department of Defense.   Photo credit: k rupp (adapted by WOTR)  

I had the distinct pleasure of sitting down with PW Singer and August Cole to talk about their new book, Ghost Fleet: A Novel of the Next World War.  Yes, these two wonks wrote some fiction and it's an impressive piece of work. In Ghost Fleet, they bring us into the future - not too far away - and show us how this war could very well be fought, examining the social, political, and technological issues through the eyes of a massive cast of characters. The way they portray military technology and its myriad effects was, in particular, fresh and interesting. Listen to this awesome podcast (courtesy the awesome media team at the New America Foundation) here:   Image: Spike, Art of Future Warfare, Atlantic Council

The deadline for a deal on the Iranian nuclear program is on June 30. Just weeks before the deadline, Colin Kahl, the National Security Adviser to Vice President Joe Biden, sat down with Ryan Evans to talk about the nuclear negotiations over drinks at the Jefferson Hotel's Quill Bar. Ryan lobbed every objection to the deal he could come up with at Colin. The result was one of the most candid conversations we've ever seen from a senior administration official on what might be a monumental event in the history of diplomacy. Have a listen!    

This is a very special Schoolhouse edition of the War on the Rocks podcast series. As many of you know, our Schoolhouse series is concerned with the intersection between policy and the academy. Is scholarship relevant to the policymaker? Is the academy preparing people to go into the policy world? Our guests grappled with these questions and more, telling their own stories of how they came be involved as scholars in the policy world, in the field in Afghanistan, and the private sector. We were joined by Frank Gavin of MIT, Erin Simpson of Caerus Associates, and Stephen Tankel of American University. Have a listen!     Image: Marcus Hansson

Four members of the War on the Rocks squad ended up in Istanbul this week. What could go wrong? Afshon Ostovar of the CNA Corporation, Aaron Stein of RUSI, Joshua Walker of GMF, and Ryan Evans of your favorite outlet on strategy, defense, foreign policy, and booze join you from a lovely garden a stone's throw from the Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sophia to talk about the Turkish elections, the implications of the Iranian nuclear negotiations, Turkish-Iranian relations, the Syrian civil war, and Istanbul's best watering holes. Have a listen!  

Editor's Note: I was honored to attend Professor Patrick Porter's inaugural lecture, celebrating his appointment at the University of Exeter as the academic director of the Strategy and Security Institute. Patrick is one of the most insightful and engaging scholarly speakers I know. Using Carl von Clausewitz and Hans Morgenthau as guideposts, he discusses Western strategic mishaps and proposes means by which states might navigate the fog of peace. Have a listen -RE     Image: GerryBuckel